January 2010 Best Chess Games

Hello everybody!

As usual once a month IM Maxim Notkin from the Russian professional chess site www.chesspro.ru sent me the best 24 chess games of January (you can find a photo of Maxim and my younger sister Oxana here). I am one of the judges, and I need to vote for the best 10 among them and I'm happy to announce that I decided to include a very nice win by the lady from India WGM Swaminathan Soumya in the top 10.

Below you will find 3 positions from that beautiful game and a playable applet to replay the game. The game is a Sicilian Defense with a nice attack by white, lots of sacrifices, nice tactics and a great finish. I am sure you will enjoy it!

Above: before the 18th move of White.

Above: before the 20th move of White.

Above: The final position of the game: checkmate!

[Event "Corus C Wijk aan Zee NED 1/16/2010"]

[Date "2010.1.27"]

[Round "10"]

[White "Soumya, Swaminathan"]

[Black "Grandelius N"]

[Result "1-0"]

[Eco "B90"]

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.f3

b5 8.Qd2 Nbd7 9.g4 Nb6 10.a4 Nc4 11.Bxc4 bxc4 12.a5 Bb7 13.Na4

d5 14.g5 Nd7 15.O-O-O dxe4 16.fxe4 Rb8 17.Rhe1 Ba8 18.Nf5 Bc6

19.Qc3 Bxa4 20.Rxd7 Qxd7 21.Nxg7+ Bxg7 22.Qxg7 Qe7 23.Qxh8+ Qf8

24.Qe5 Qb4 25.Bd2 Qb5 26.Qh8+ Kd7 27.Qd4+ Kc8 28.Bf4 Rb7 29.Rd1

Qd7 30.Qxc4+ Qc6 31.Rd4 Bb5 32.Qb4 Qe8 33.Qc5+ Qc6 34.Qf8+ Qe8

35.Rc4+ Kd7 36.Qd6# 1-0

Posted by: Alexandra Kosteniuk

Women's World Chess Champion

www.chessblog.com